On Wednesday, Feb. 20, the University of Cincinnati announced that it surpassed the $1 billion goal of its Proudly Cincinnati campaign—four months ahead of the campaign’s June 2013 deadline. The university’s 2013 Proudly Cincinnati Faculty/Staff Campaign continues through June 30, 2013.

The following story highlights contributions to the Proudly Cincinnati Faculty/Staff Campaign that have positively impacted the Academic Health Center, improving our tripartite mission of education, research and clinical care.

Before he even applied to medical school, Charles Heaton, MD, knew the importance of scholarships.

"We were a struggling middle-class family with two kids in college,” he remembers. "Tuition to medical school was about 20 percent of the family resources. A full scholarship was mandatory for graduate school.”When he was applying in the 1950s, Heaton says there were no student loans. Aspiring physicians had limited options for paying for medical school: "You either dug it out of the mattress, got a sponsor, or you didn’t go.”

Fortunately, Heaton received a tuition scholarship to Baylor College of Medicine, eventually becoming a faculty member in the Department of Dermatology at the UC College of Medicine in 1978. During his tenure at UC, Heaton played a large part in the department’s education of medical students and held an active clinical role, receiving a Distinguished Service Award from the Ohio Dermatological Association in 2010 and a Career Achievement Award from UC Health University Hospital in 2011.

Now a professor emeritus, he has worked to give back to the institutions and communities that have supported him, contributing to scholarships at his undergraduate alma mater, Texas A&M University, and the University of Cincinnati.

"From the time I can remember, my parents talked about the obligation we have to give something back,” he says. "Public schools cannot function without the contributions of the people in their community.”

He says that whenever he donates to a school, he specifies that funds be given to a "student who could otherwise not attend the College of Medicine.”

Student scholarships are a particular focus for the College of Medicine's fundraising efforts. Overall, scholarship support enables UC to remain competitive nationally in recruiting talented students as well as provide for a greater range and diversity in the student body. For the College of Medicine, efforts are underway to ramp up for a significant scholarship campaign to support the college’s growth in the upcoming years.

"It’s my obligation to give back to the community that has supported me,” says Heaton. "It’s up to us, those who have profited from our education, to make it possible for those who come after us to receive at least as good of an education, if not a better one, than we had.”